No Longer Free
by Assimbya
Summary: [Hedda Gabler] AU. What if Hedda's glorious suicide had failed?


"Yes, you're looking forward to that, aren't you, Mr. Brack? Yourself as the only cock in the yard…"

She took the pistol out of the box as she said that, relishing the weight of the cold metal in her hands, and lifted it up near her head. Then, without a word more, she pulled the trigger.

In the other room, a loud shot was heard coming from Hedda's room. Brack and Jorgen go to his feet hurriedly, and Brack followed him while Thea got to her feet but didn't start heading toward Hedda's room, merely standing there nervously.

The bullet had missed Hedda's temple, somehow, and hit the wall behind her. Jorgen looked completely shocked. "Oh, my God, Hedda! You've put a bullet right through the wall! Think of that!"

Hedda too, looked shocked as well as angry. She whispered to herself. "I missed…how could I have missed? I _never _miss…"

Brack smiled slightly and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "I told you, Hedda Gabler. People don't do such things."

She looked at him with an expression of complete and utter loathing. "But _I _do." She reached down then, quickly, to where she had dropped the pistol, and this time put it directly against her skull. Jorgen gasped, shocked, but Brack, who was standing right next to Hedda, quickly pulled the pistol out of her hands and pinned her arms behind her back, handing it to Jorgen. "She was distraught, of course," Brack said to Jorgen, "the recent…shock of Mr. Lovborg's death must have been just too much for her."

Jorgen nodded, looking overwhelmed, gazing down at the pistol in his hand. "I guess I'll just…uh, have to destroy this now. I don't think it would be good for Hedda to have it around anymore." Hedda winced visibly but said nothing. Jorgen continued. "I imagine Thea is also quite shocked…I should reassure her that's everything is all right. Mr. Brack, would you mind…?"

Brack smiled. "I'll take good care of Hedda for you, Mr. Tesman, don't worry."

As soon as Jorgen had left the room, Brack let go of Hedda and she pulled away roughly, speaking, half to herself. "The pistols gone! And with them, my last chance of freedom!" Brack stepped closer to her again. "Now, Hedda, it isn't so bad as all that, is it? And is my company so unpleasant?"

She laughed bitterly. "I'll kill myself as soon as you or Tesman have left the room. There are other ways of killing oneself other than using pistols. Perhaps not so glorious, perhaps not so to my taste, but they exist."

Brack shook his head. "You won't. There's no guarantee that you'll succeed, especially without your pistols. And if you don't…surely your husband would be obligated to send you off to a mental asylum. And with all your talk of freedom, you certainly would not enjoy that much. In a place like that, everything would be controlled for you. And you would 'bored to death' as you have put it."

Hedda seemed halted by this possibility. "You wouldn't let them." Brack laid his hands open. "I would be greatly saddened if I had to, Hedda."

She smiled at him, but it wasn't a smile that held any happiness. "And there we are again. I'm in your power. You can demand anything of me. I wonder how long it will be till your demands become intolerable?"

He took another step towards her. "You must admit, we're the only ones worthy of one another."

She laughed, hysterical laughter. "Worthy! Let me tell you something, Mr. Brack. There's no such thing as anyone being worthy of anything in this world where everything beautiful is turned to something mean and petty. When I was young and naïve and had perhaps delusions of grandeur I thought that I had found a man worthy or me and who I was worthy of. Now that same man is lying dead, found in the salon of some whorish actress with a bullet accidentally in his body."

Brack looked skeptical. "Don't try to convince me that Lovborg's death has startled you too much, Hedda. I know you well enough to know that you're like me. You never grow that attached to someone. It's just…not practical. Especially when it's Ejlert Lovborg that you've grown attached to. You're a smart, sensible woman. You'll see that at this point, it's just better for all involved if you merely…give in." He ran a hand over her arm and she pulled away violently. He grabbed her wrist, pulling her back towards him. "Don't forget, Hedda, that I have two weapons against you now."

Hedda froze at that, and didn't pull away even as he kissed her. His kiss was nothing like Tesman's awkward, uncomfortable ones, or Ejlert's passionate, desperate ones. No, Brack's kiss was ruthless, controlled. But he had to pull out of it quickly as Tesman's footsteps were heard outside of the door. "Hedda, dear? Are you all right? Would you like some tea or something?"

Hedda's voice was emotionless. "I think I'd prefer something with quite a bit of alcohol, Jorgen." Tesman seemed quite worried for a moment. "I think that wouldn't the best idea…not for you, in your state of mind at the moment…"

She closed her eyes and said nothing. Tesman said, hastily. "Just tea, I think, then."

Hedda spent the next morning and afternoon playing Chopin's Funeral Marc h on the piano, over and over. For her piano was all she had left to occupy her now. Her pistols were gone, one confiscate by some policeman, and the other destroyed by her husband. And she certainly didn't want to talk to anyone, not that she had anyone to talk to in the first place.

So she played, often repeating the same few measures several times over. It drove Tesman half mad, and he often asked her to stop, but she didn't reply to him and eventually he gave up. He looked extremely relieved when the backdoor was opened, for of course that could be only one person.

Brack's tone was jovial as he greeted them both. "I trust you both are doing well after the excitement of yesterday? Oh, yes, Mr. Tesman, you must go to Mrs. Elvsted. Don't worry, Hedda and I shall have a marvelous time together." Tesman tried to smile, kissed Hedda nervously on the forehead, and left.

As Tesman left, Hedda began to play again. Brack sat next to her on the piano bench, beginning to play as well, though quite a livelier tune than the one Hedda was playing. "Come now, Hedda," He said as he began to play, "playing such things is just ridiculous." She stopped playing and stood up, beginning to circle the room, then finally speaking, "Why even bother with the piano and the conversation? We both know what you want out of this."

He stood up and went to stand near to her. "But Hedda…it's your intelligence, as well, that makes you so fascinating." She laughed. "_Fascinating! _Oh, now I'm an object of curiosity!"

Brack laughed too, though for different reasons. "Among other things."

There was a long pause, then Hedda spoke, quite randomly. "You don't have your triangle anymore, you know, Mr. Brack. It's just the two of us now, and the two of them. And that rather defeats the purpose of the triangle in the first place."

Brack smiled. "The triangle never mattered very much in the first place."

She laughed. "I thought not."

There was another pause, and again Hedda broke it. "So, _are _you going to do what I know you want to do or are we just going to dance around the subject all evening?" Brack's smile made Hedda shudder. "Well, now that you suggested it, we might as well start where we left off."

And without anything more to say on the subject, he kissed her again. This time, she kissed him back, and didn't attempt to pull away as he began to undo the buttons on the back of her dress.

After that, it felt like life became Hell. She didn't talk to anyone but Brack, and the time she wasn't around him she spent playing whatever music came into her head on the piano. Sometimes she played wildly, and other times emotionlessly, as though she was going through life hypnotized.

And she gained no more pleasure from being around Brack anymore either. Everything felt so…vulgar. From the steps that they took to make sure that Tesman didn't find out what was going on – not that it mattered, for he was with Thea more and more often, and Hedda didn't believe that they did nothing but work on Ejlert's manuscript – to the way it felt to have him, panting and groaning, above her, to the silence as they both redressed late at night. And for her there was always the memory of the fact that she could not do anything to disobey him, that he held such power over her.

Sometimes she would still eye small things that she could use to kill herself, tools for her to achieve her freedom. But without her pistols, the impulse wasn't strong enough. And after Brack had suggested the fact that she could be put in a mental asylum, the possibility terrified her. And so she just went through that life emotionlessly. She didn't even pull the covers off the chairs anymore, as she used to do obsessively.

Then, one day, about four months after everything had become this way, she found out that she was pregnant.

It was her worst fear, to be tied down by having a child, that responsibility that she could not find a way to get out of, a responsibility that would continue for a lifetime.

And, also, she had not even shared a bed with Tesman for months. The child could only be Brack's.

It was as though all the emotion that had been lacking in her for months was suddenly let loose. She grabbed all the vases and bowls and plates and little glass ornaments that she could lay her hands on and threw them at the wall or just dropped them on the floor. The racket brought Tesman all the way from the other end of the house. When he asked what was wrong, she said merely, "I'm pregnant."

She couldn't bear any accusing glances he might give her. She heard his whispered, "Oh, God, Hedda…" and went to the piano and started playing. Tesman didn't say anything more, but he left at his accustomed time.

And Brack arrived at his accustomed time, as well. Noticing the broken plates and vases and such all around, he raised an eyebrow as he came to greet her, but she said only what she had said to Tesman; "I'm pregnant." There was no need to add _with your child._ She then went back to playing the piano, not looking at him to see his reaction. She heard him leave the house a few minutes later.

After Brack was gone, Hedda thought suddenly that perhaps Tesman hadn't destroyed her pistol after all. She hadn't really looked for it, and if she could just find it…oh, then she could end all of this as she had wanted to months ago, in the beautiful, glorious way!

She began to look through every room in the house, overturning piles of books or clothing, looking in the back of closets and dressers, checking under all the furniture. She was beginning to give up hope of ever finding it when she found, under Tesman's bed, the familiar case that held her pistols. She took it out, hugging it to her, feeling the old wood against her cheek and finally, for the first time she could remember, crying. She whispered, to herself. "See, father, General Gabler, I'm your daughter after all. And I'll leave the world as you would have wanted me to."

Then she opened it, undoing the metal clasps there, her heart beating faster in anticipation.

It was empty. There was nothing there but smooth black velvet and a few spare bullets.

Letting out a scream of despair, Hedda Gabler fell to her knees and sobbed.


End file.
